Recently we saw the introduction of a new game on Hive called Rabona. It is a Football Manager game where it enables one to handle all operations of a Football (Soccer) Club. This is a rather novel concept when applied to cryptocurrency as we will see in a moment.
Not being a gamer, this struck me as a rather unique proposition. That said, it is not without an existing market.
The Football Manager pool is rather large. While it will not rival something like Fortnight, it does have a vast amount of users globally. This could really be a nice target market when the Rabona team is ready to expand their reach.
Presently the game is in beta, so the finer points of the game are being tested and worked out. It is closed meaning by invite only. According to their last post, they will be adding another 10 or so testers in a week. Thus, if interested, perhaps contact the Rabona team and get on the list.
What is noteworthy is that there is a long tradition in a game such as this. It dates back to 1993 when a couple of developers out of England introduced Championship Manager to the world.
Championship Manager became the most popular football management sim of the later 1990s and early 2000s, regularly setting sales records.
There was another game that dates back into the early 80s called Football Manager. This was one of the more successful games, spawning many follow-up versions. The claim was that it sold over a million copies before fading in the early 1990s.
When the split occurred with Championship Manager, the team that held the rights to the database released another version of Football Manager. This has gone onto many updates and global success. The game was released in conjunction with Sega.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Football_Manager
COVID-19 shut down sporting events across the world. Even now that many sports are back in action, they are doing so without fans in the stands. When this will change is anyone's guess. It is likely this extends into next year meaning most sports will have two seasons interrupted.
During the lockdowns, which are still going on in many areas, people turned to different games. Football Manager was one that started to set records for the franchise. In short, 2020 was a glorious year.
The online version saw near 90,000 people playing the game at the same time on Steam.
How big is this market?
The 2019 version of Football Manager sold over 2 million copies. Obviously, there are no numbers being reported for 2020 yet but the expectation is that it will grow again.
So how does all this play into Rabona?
To start, it is always good to have a market when bringing out something new. It is obvious that millions around the world enjoy this type of game. Up until now, I would presume that players engaged simply for the enjoyment of the game as well as the competition that it fosters. Certainly, there are likely to be tournaments where people could win prizes and other goodies.
However, this does not compare to what Rabona is doing?
Quite simply, being tied to blockchain, turns one from a player to an owner. Being in charge of the entire Football enterprise means one is actually, through the game, running a business. This virtual business will pay out in cryptocurrency (combination of HIVE and RBN). This creates the opportunity for players to financially benefit while playing a game they truly enjoy.
Of course, since I am not a beta tester, I cannot validate the layout of the game or what features it offers. I would believe that, over time, more will be added which will close the gap with some of the mainstream games.
The undiscovered piece to this, actually to all online gaming, is the non-fungible token (NFT). We could see a NFT issued for each team that is constructed. This would provide game players with a true asset that might be sold. Of course, the better one is at managing his or her team, the more value it would carry.
A couple millions players might not sound like a lot in the online gaming world and, truthfully, it is not. However, when we look at blockchain gaming, still in its early infancy, we see that Splinterlands consistently ranks at the top with 5,000 or 6,000 MAU.
Could Rabona peel off a fraction of those 2M people buying Football Manager each year? Time will tell on that one but the fact there is a market is a good beginning. To attain a great deal of success in blockchain, grabbing even 10,000 would put one at the top of the list.
In this instance, it seems like a simple decision for users. Naturally, the quality of Rabona compared to the other games is going to be vital. While it is unfair to expect a newcomer to rival a decades old game with a 20 different versions, over time, it is crucial that there be some comparison. Players will not put up with a product that is substantially lower in quality for long.
The fact that they can get compensated for their efforts takes things to an entirely new level. Are we starting to see the start of a new career path: owner of virtual businesses in games?
What we know at this time is the gaming industry is getting reading for some major changes.
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Be careful comparing Rabona to the Football Manager franchise.
Football Manager has all of the licenses that allow them to include all of the real leagues, players and teams. This is why it's so popular.
I take it that Rabona is going to be much more like Hattrick with entirely custom teams and generated players.
Like real professional footballers, player cards won't be a buy and hold forever type assets. I'm excited to see how they integrate player ageing, training and experience, then what this does to value over time.
I'm really excited for this one!
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Imagine my friend how much I look forward to this game. For days I was reading about. Interestingly, I'm even preparing a post and I hope that more people can get to know this promising project.
With the growth of the blockchain games industry in recent years and with a large target audience of the genre, I hope Rabona will be a real success.
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Okay now that's good news. I reckon we'd be managing our team, finances, tactics and all that against other managers. I use to play football manager, both on PC and phone. The game is robust, and I mean big. The mobile version alone was like 2GB, while the PC version was like 20gb or so. The game is intuitive and very thorough in the representation of football world.
I reckon this one on Hive will be watered down. Whatever though, I'm definitely going to be playing that game. I even have a special account called @arsenal4life dedicated to football stuff 😁
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I would presume, just understanding development, how the first versions are going to be slimmed down. Right now, in beta, I would think there is just the basic features they are testing. A good development team will keep updating and adding more features at a fairly rapid rate.
This will help to attract more users. The original MVP might only be of interest to the people on Hive which is a start. However, like all games, they need to develop to the point to appeal to those outside the system.
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Yeah, that will make it grow faster. They need to make it less crypto dependent and more about simply playing a game. If there's something I've learnt from the gaming industry, it is that if you make a good game, people will pay to play it. They need to avoid talking too much about tokenization and all that crypto stuff and just focus on creating a fun and interactive game.
I would agree with that. The idea of crypto can confuse things.
However, from a different point of view, the tokenization is what will separate the game from Football Manager and others, at least early on. It is safe to presume that the features will not be there since V.1 will likely be a MVP.
As the game development expands, we could see a lot of players coming for the game. But to start, why would people switch if there is already a game far advanced than Rabona?
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Well, the initial part will be for the MVP to get in. Buying the game tokens or whatever could be used to fund development over time I guess. Average gamers will look at the game and say "oh look, they're trying to compete with Football manager" but they suck for now, and I think that is better than the average gamer looking at Rabona and think "is this a game or some scam website with all this shit about crypto?"
Anyways, I believe that they can find a midpoint where the game highlights the tokenized aspect but at the same time, makes it fun for people. !ENGAGE 50
All that is true although I think a lot depends upon how the game looks and what features are available when released. As you said, stuff that looks "scammy" will have issues. However, if the development team does a good job creating something that catches the player's eyes and is pleasing, even if a bit light on features, then the idea of scammy could be diminished.
Plus constant updates to the game overcome that quickly.
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Yeah. Especially for people like me that already have a vested interest in football. If If I see that the game is constantly being developed and stuff, then yeah, I'd definitely be actively playing. I just wonder how it is going to be designed. Like, will it be a splinterlands type game but with 11 players, and three subs per person or will they add something else to it? This could be huge if done well
ENGAGEtokens.I try to think about how digital gaming has changed over the years. Initially, it was basically just solo entertainment. Then group entertainment, then interactive, and so on. After several years, gamers started finding ways to monetize, basically "selling" their gaming sessions through video recording first, and video streaming later. Finally, world leagues started pumping out with sponsors.
Now we enter a new dimension, one where we might start from basic gaming again (no 3D, no interaction, no groups) but with value creation directly through crypto. Add to that the other monetization possibilities as streaming and you give a new twist a whole industry.
Can't wait to see how this all evolves
Yeah that is all true. We are back to starting from the beginning although this process might move a lot quicker than the progression the last time.
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That sounds pretty cool.. did you see @trumpman post about HIVE over taking EOS for gaming.. the more games the better imo
Yeah it was very interesting. We have a number of games in Beta (or Alpha) which is exciting.
Just wait until they leave beta and start to truly go after users.
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This does sound interesting. Thanks for the heads up. Do they have plans to market it to any of these 2 million people playing football manager already?
I dont know their marketing plans @jrcornel. The only thing I saw in the posts talked about development. I am not sure if someone else is handling the marketing or they having evolved to that point yet.
We will have to see what their plans are to market to get users to the game.
That is the key for all the apps on here.
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Very interesting to see the pace at which the development of Rabona follows. The future of Hive lies in these sub developments. Glad it's happening around sports.
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wow this shows the game will be a very interesting one...@taskmaster4450
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I have high hopes for Rabona!
Football and Football Managers are highly popular and it's the kind of game that does not need much explanation. Most people will know what to expect from it right away.
Hopefully, that should make it a lot easier to attract players outside of Hive and maybe even outside the blockchain world.
Agreed. Simplicity, at least to start, is the key. If people have a reference point to go from, either real world football or the previous games, that will make the transition a lot easier.
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